As more and more data hungry Smart phones and tablets consume network resources such as bandwidth and signaling, carriers or operators are faced with additional challenges that go beyond network upgrades and offloading. With the explosion of mobile media and as end-users turn to their portable devices to view and share videos, music, and applications, the pressure for bigger, faster networks has grown. With total spending now exceeding $50B on network improvements alone, operators are working hard to make the networks faster, smarter and more efficient.
Existing solutions on the market to improve network performance deal with only one aspect of the problem—increasing the size and scope of the networks. Although this addresses the need for ‘bigger pipes’ to transport more data, it does not take into account the type of data being shared. While bandwidth may address mobile video applications, it fails to take into account the vast array of other mobile applications and end-user behavior. Many factors contribute to the massive growth in data including more sophisticated devices, end-user behavior, and advanced mobile applications-all contributing to an enormous amount of data traffic.
Not only have network operators experienced significant challenges, but device manufacturers have as well. With increasingly sophisticated devices, device makers face challenges with limited battery life. Such challenges are also driven by end-users accessing multiple applications simultaneously and applications/clients constantly accessing the network. For example, Smart phones and their ‘always on’, chatty mobile applications, receive frequent updates from the application host and also regularly poll the network. These constant requests cause the device battery to drain rapidly. Some have attempted to address this issue by rapidly disconnecting from the network once updates are sent or received. While battery life may be improved to some extent, this approach, however, places a heavy load on mobile networks.
The constant connections and disconnections increase the amount of signaling traffic, which lowers the performance of the network overall, again passes the torch onto the network operators and forcing them to increase bandwidth and network access. To date, carriers have been able to invest in 4G and LTE networks to boost network capacity in hotspots. However, these solutions are reaching their limit. LTE and 4G are also showing that the perceived availability of more bandwidth is causing users and applications to increase usage and data consumption. In the long run, it might add to the congestion problem rather than help.
State of the art cellular networks may be designed for high-throughput of large amounts of data, not for applications that require frequent but low-throughput and/or small amounts of data. Each transaction puts the mobile device radio in a high-power mode for a considerable length of time—typically between 15-30 seconds. As the high-power mode can consume as much as 100× the power as an idle mode, these network-initiated applications quickly drain battery. The issue has been exacerbated by the rapid increase of the popularity of applications with network-initiated functionalities, such as push email, news feeds, mobile applications, etc. Furthermore, the problem with constant polling is that mobile phones also rely on signaling to send and receive calls and SMS messages and sometimes these basic mobile functions are forced to take a backseat to unruly applications and other mobile clients.